The Bourbon Street Ripper (Sins of the Father, Book 1) (26 page)

Rodger knew his face betrayed both his horror and his disgust, Monty’s threat of making Michael “his bitch” suddenly making sense. Rodger started to speak again when Monty suddenly cried out in pain. Looking over in surprise, Rodger saw Monty withdrawing his hand from Horace’s face, a large bite mark on it. Monty screamed, “YOU FUCKING TWITCH!!!”

Rodger stared at Horace in horror.
Horace, you stupid idiot!

He felt desperation grow in his chest as he struggled for a way to turn attention back to him. Like a car’s transmission might do at the worst possible time, Rodger’s brain locked up, and he could only utter idle threats. “Monty! You hurt Horace, and I swear I’ll hunt you down like a dog!”

That only made Monty cackle, and with a roar of laughter, he pushed a button on the side of the conveyor belt. With a sudden
clank
and
whir
, the machine came to life, a constant clanking and crashing coming from the interior of the large metal container that the conveyor belt fed into.

The belt itself started to slowly move Horace toward the machine as Monty called out, “Watch closely, Detective, this shit’s gonna happen to you next!”

“What the heck is that thing?” cried out a panicked and terrified Horace as he struggled to get free from his chains.

“That is something of my own design,” said Monty. “I use it to shred metal into bits so I can melt it down easier. To be honest,” he mused as he walked alongside his struggling parole officer, “I have no idea what it’ll do to a human body.”

“Have you lost your mind, Mr. Jones?” cried Horace. “You know you’ll get the death penalty if you do this!”

The fact that someone like Horace was trying to psych out Monty restarted the fuse in Rodger’s brain. The detective screamed, “Yeah! You know we’ve got backup coming, Monty! We’re not stupid enough to come in here without a Plan B. Assault and attempted murder is bad enough, but if you actually kill us, you’re killing yourself.”

Booming out more laughter, Monty said, “Shit, you think I don’t know you got your little butt-buddies coming? This is why I’m using this thing on you and not giving you an acid bath. I know I ain’t got time. But once you and nerd-boy here are dead, I’m outta here. I’ve had an escape plan in place since I built this fucking warehouse, just for this occasion. I’m heading to Mexico. Fuck this fucked-up city! Fuck this serial killer shit! And fuck the fucking Nite Priory!”

Rodger’s eyes widened at the mention of the Nite Priory. He recognized that as the name that sent Topper Jack his letter.

Rodger’s thoughts were interrupted by Horace screaming to be let go, pleading for his life, blubbering in gut-wrenching terror. Horace was halfway to the machine, and while from this angle Rodger could not see what the interior must look like to the parole officer, his imagination filled in some horrific blanks.

“It’s okay to scream,” Monty taunted Horace, his sweat dripping down on his parole officer’s face. “It’s okay to cry. It’s gonna hurt real bad. So go ahead and scream for me. Scream like a bitch.”

“Monty.” Rodger’s voice thickened with panic. “Don’t do this! For heaven’s sake, don’t do this!”

This just spurred Monty on to laugh more maniacally and slap Horace repeatedly in the face, knocking his glasses off. “Gonna die, pussy,” Monty started pseudo-singing. “Gonna die real bad, pussy! Scream like a girl for me, pussy!”

Monty stopped slapping Horace as the parole officer cried, snot and tears running down his face, begging for his life. The front of his pants had gotten very dark, and he struggled in vain to get free, unable to roll off the conveyor belt due to its side guards. He even tried to push himself back.

“Stop it!” Rodger’s voice was just as frantic as he struggled to break free himself. It was like struggling against a one-ton weight. He couldn’t think of what to say, what to do, to make this situation stop. He had never felt so helpless.

With his feet inches from the machine, Horace looked down and started screaming, “NO! NO! NOOOOO!” while trying to curl his feet back. Monty stood back and laughed cruelly while rubbing the front of his jeans and panting like a dog. As Horace’s feet entered the machine, blood sprayed everywhere. The parole officer’s scream was shrill and girlish.

Rodger forced himself to look away, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth. The sounds of Horace’s screams, accompanied by the
clanking
of the machine and the sound of bones crunching, meat tearing, and blood squirting, lasted an obscenely long time.

One of the more shrill screams turned into outright crying for his mother, which squelched into a choking and gurgling sound, and then only the gruesome sounds of a body being mangled.

When Rodger finally looked back at the machine, Horace was nothing more than a mess of red meat and blood slopping from the back of the machine, out of a small metallic chute, and into a trough.

Rodger felt sick to his stomach, trying hard to hold back the bile. He really wanted to vomit. Instead, tears of rage came down his face. As the machine shut off, Monty let out a loud whistle, having come around to the rear of the machine and seen the bloody mess.

“Fucking hell,” Monty said as he headed over toward Rodger, snorting with laughter like he had just heard the best joke of his life. “There is no way in shit I can clean that up before your buddies get here.”

Standing in front of Rodger, Monty cracked his knuckles and said, “Too bad I don’t got enough time to really enjoy doing you in, old man. But you’ll scream for me like a bitch, too, won’t ya?”

“How could you do that to another human being?” Rodger said through his teeth, with shock, rage, and many more emotions coursing through him. Turning to Monty, Rodger spat in his face and cried out, “You disgusting animal!”

Wiping the mess off of his face, Mad Monty smirked and said, “Yeah, you my bitch now, Rodger.” With a single swing of his massive hand, Monty slugged Rodger in the gut hard enough to knock all the air out of his lungs.

Rodger’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and while he was barely conscious, he was aware of being lifted up and carried over to the conveyor belt. When his senses returned to him, he was face-up and pointing, feet-first, toward the machine.

The interior was too messy with Horace’s guts to see clearly, but it looked like someone had merged a car crusher, a wood chipper, and a mass-killing machine into one terrifying contraption.

Looking up, Rodger saw Monty’s face grinning down at him.

“Bye-bye, Detective. Fuck you.”

With the push of a button, Monty started the machine up, and Rodger soon saw himself heading, feet-first, toward the jaws of the machine. As the mists of being knocked about left, the severity of the situation hit.

This is it.
I am going to die.

In Rodger’s mind, images flashed by. Clinking glasses with Edward in a bar after work. He and Michael catching a man who had murdered his own wife for insurance money. Ouellette giving him a commendation. And, finally, Sam greeting him for the first time in years and offering him a cup of coffee.

Rodger’s mind then focused on Sam, specifically young Samantha, and that look of a child devoid of life, who needed someone, anyone, to make the bad stuff go away. That snapped Rodger back to reality.

Fuck this!
I can’t die until I solve this case! For Sam. For Edward. For Michael. And for me.

Rodger looked around, seeing that he was halfway to the jaws of the machine. Walking alongside him, Monty was talking trash. Ignoring the taunts, Rodger looked around for something—anything—that would help to save his life.

The conveyor belt’s side guards were too high for him to roll off. The chains around his chest and wrists severely restricted his upper torso. His lower torso, apart from being bound at the ankles, was much more mobile.

Rodger thought as quickly as he could. Even if he managed to sit up, Monty could easily just punch him out and lay him back down. Since Monty was by his head, Rodger couldn’t kick him.

His only hope was to stop himself from entering the machine.

Looking down at the entrance of the machine, Rodger saw something that could potentially be helpful: a grate, suspended over the mouth of the machine, held in place by a latch. As he drew closer to being turned into compost, Rodger figured it was probably an emergency latch and a safety grating.

Rodger moved his feet some from side to side, and realized that the chains were just loose enough for him to kick his feet up. He reasoned that if he could get the grating down, it might buy him enough time to sit up and jump off the conveyor belt.

Remembering that his weapon, which was on the small table, still had the clip in it, the detective quickly formed a plan.

I’ve got one chance at this working. It’s a slim one, but it’s all the chance I’ve got.

Rodger’s thoughts were interrupted by Monty slapping him in the face, like he’d done to Horace.

“Hey, bitch,” taunted Monty, “no looking away.” With a rough grab, Monty forced Rodger’s head to look down at the mouth of the machine, holding his neck and head in place.

“See that?” Monty hissed into Rodger’s ear, his breath like beer and onions mixed into an unsavory stench. “That shit’s gonna tear you into little pieces.”

Monty rocked Rodger’s head back and forth. “I musta done something right when I made it, ’cause Horace didn’t die until that shit ate his most of his guts and lungs. So you get to watch it rip your balls off.”

Rodger watched the approaching opening of the machine, his eyes on the latch that held the safety grate open. Just a few more feet and he’d get his one chance.

Monty leaned in more and said, “Hey, Rodger, I just realized something.” He tilted Rodger’s head up to face him. “I’m gonna rip your balls off anyway! Ain’t that the shit?”

Rodger started to laugh—possibly somewhat hysterically—at that comment, then said, “Yeah, I guess the joke’s on me, ain’t it? Hey, Monty, before I die, there’s something I gotta tell you!”

“Oh?” said Monty, leaning down to look into Rodger’s eyes. “What’s that, bitch?”

Rodger felt himself get cold, a tingle going down his spine, and his thoughts focus. He could feel the power coiling in his legs, ready to spring, and his concentration centered on the latch that would drop the grating.

Most importantly, he felt an overwhelming feeling of confidence in pulling off the escape plan. As he flashed a grin at his enemy, Rodger said with a laugh, “You’re gonna get your ass kicked by an old man.”

With that, Rodger quickly threw his head upward, his forehead crashing hard into Monty’s mouth. Rodger felt the flesh of his forehead split open as those white teeth cut into him. Every part of him felt invincible and empowered. This desperate attack did the trick, as Monty flew back, and his hands, which were keeping Rodger from looking at the machine, let go of his head.

Quickly, Rodger looked down and saw that his feet were inches away from the jaws of the machine. The exposed grinders and blades whipped and whirled, caked with the bits of blood, flesh, and meat that used to be Horace. Still feeling that incredible focus, along with that chilly sensation, Rodger lifted up his legs and, with every bit of strength in his body, slammed his bound feet up at the latch holding the safety grate open.

There was a loud
crash
and suddenly Rodger’s ass was smooshed against the safety grating.

Rodger rolled back onto his knees as the conveyor belt, still moving, pushed him into the grating. He soon found himself face-first against the front of the machine, the metal grating cutting at his cheek, as his body, unable to go inside, kept being being pushed into the metal framework.

This was not part of the plan.

He heard Monty roaring, and he leapt into action. With another grunt, Rodger threw himself off the conveyor belt and onto the floor.

Hitting the concrete hard, Rodger felt pain explode in his arm and stars explode in his head. And even though the chilly calming sensation was gone, the rush of adrenaline in his body was so strong that the pain left very quickly.

Thinking that Michael made stunts like that look easy, Rodger got up and, kicking his legs a bit, started trying to loosen the chains around his ankles.

To his pleasant surprise, Rodger felt the chains loosen, and as he slipped one foot out, then another, he saw Mad Monty come around the far side of the machine’s conveyor belt, murder in his eyes. He roared at Rodger, “You’re dead, bitch!”

That was all the motivation Rodger needed.

Rodger quickly ran to the table where his gun lay. In one motion, he grabbed the gun and kept moving. He could hear Monty’s heavy footsteps behind him and could hear him taunting, “You think you can aim that shit with your hands tied up, bitch? I’m gonna tear you apart with my bare hands!”

Stumbling forward, Rodger hated to admit that Monty was right. With his hands and chest bound this way, he could only shoot down at an angle.

As he moved from behind the machine, leaping over the trench that held most of Horace’s remains, Rodger decided to take the battle to higher ground. Taking a right, he headed toward the stairs leading up.

As he rushed forward, his legs aching, holding on to the gun for dear life, Rodger heard Monty give another roar. This was followed by the sound of a large man’s body hitting the ground. Rodger smirked to himself that the dumbass had slipped on his own victim’s gore.

Reaching the stairs, Rodger started to head up. The movement of climbing stairs after such a beating made the detective’s lungs, legs, and hips burn. He felt as if he would pass out again at any moment. Twice he nearly slipped and fell face-first into the corrugated metallic steps.

All Rodger could think about, as he stopped for a moment when he reached the top step, was that he was too old for this shit.

As he took his third deep breath, he heard heavy footfalls on the stairs coming up, followed by, “I’m gonna rip off your nuts with my teeth! I’m gonna twist off your arms and eat them! I’m gonna—”

Monty’s threats were cut short when Rodger shot at him, the bullet ricocheting off the steps above him. Monty stopped and nearly jumped back, but then laughed. “You can’t shoot for shit, old man! Who’s gonna kick whose ass now?”